CT Senator: 2nd Amendment Not Guaranteed

Just when we thought the debate over the Second Amendment was drawing to a close, another politician felt the need to stir the pot. Senator Chris Murphy (D) of Connecticut decided to air his gun grievances during a recent interview with Rachel Maddow.

Here’s an excerpt of Murphy’s argument:

“I mean, let’s look at the context of nullification. Nullification was last used by southern states to try to eviscerate Civil Rights legislation, to try to prevent states from basically enforcing desegregation — and I think history will look back on this round of nullification as kindly as it did on the last round.

It is laughable also because it is a total bastardization of the Second Amendment. The second amendment is not an absolute right, not a God-given right. It has always had conditions upon it like the First Amendment has.

“The idea that the Second Amendment was put in there in order to allow citizens to fight their government is insane. If that was the case, we wouldn’t have also included treason in the United States constitution. We basically said, ‘If you take arms up against the government, we’re going to knock your block off,’ and that’s what the early Presidents ended up doing in the rebellion and the whiskey rebellion. The Second Amendment is not designed to allow the citizenry to arm itself against the government, and nullification is another example of states not understanding the true nature of that amendment.”

That’s an interesting argument but an inherently flawed one. Wasn’t it Thomas Jefferson who once said these rights were “endowed by [our] Creator”? Where did that phrase come from again? Oh, right, The Declaration of Independence.

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

Also, the Founding Father did include the Second Amendment to fight their government, or at the very least protect them from it. Same for why the Third Amendment prevents quartering of soldiers. The Founding Fathers had just finished a war against the British, an abusive government that threatened their way of living.

We’ll spare Murphy a lengthy history lesson, but we hope he checks up on his facts next time. Scary to think what a few more of these senators could accomplish in 2014.